the_sisters_grimm_fairy_tale_meaningsfandomcom-20200214-history
Cinderella
''Cinderella ''as told by the Brothers Grimm, ancestors to Sabrina and Daphne through Wilhelm Grimm, is a story of a little girl, pious and good, who loved her mother very much. When her mother died, she remained pious and good and mourned for her mother every day. Her father remarried to a woman with two daughters, who were lovely on the outside, but had dark hearts. They began to treat Cinderella like a servant, and took away all of her nice things. One day, when her father was going to the fair, he promised to bring her step-sisters back gowns and jewels and pearls, but when asked what poor little Cinderella wanted, she simply replied that she wanted the first branch to touch his hat when he began the journey home. He brought back all that he promised, and Cinderella planted the branch on her mother's grave until it became a beautiful tree, grown from her tears. She then went to the tree 3 times a day to pray and cry. Every time she did so, a white bird would come from the tree and give her whatever she wished for. Then the king proclaimed that there was to be a three day festival for the prince to choose a bride, and Cinderella desperately wanted to go. Though she did all of her chores (with help from the birds), she was forbidden from attending the festival. Shen went to her mother's tree and made a wish, and suddenly she was wearing a beautiful gown. She went to the festival and her family did not recognize her. Then the Prince approached her for a dance, and she accepted. For the rest of the night he would not dance with anyone else, and if anyone asked her to dance, he would tell them that she was his partner. They danced all evening until she wanted to go home, and the Prince tried to escort her, but she did not want him to, so she hid in a pigeon coop to evade him. The Prince waited until her father came and told him about the girl jumping into the coop, and her father suddenly wondered if the girl might be Cinderella. He took an ax to the coop, but by the time it was opened, it was empty, Cinderella had escaped, and by the time her family arrived home, she was bad in her smock and was waiting in the kitchen. The exact same events happened the next night, except she hid in a pear tree, which her father cut down to see no one in it. But on the third night, when she was wearing the most beautiful gown of them all and slippers of pure gold, the Prince laid a trap by having the entire staircase be covered in pitch. This caused her to leave one slipper behind, and the Prince swore to marry the girl who fit that slipper. When the Prince made it to Cinderella's house to try the girls of that house with the slipper, both of her step-sisters tried to trick the prince into marrying them by cutting off parts of their feet, because their mother told them they wouldn't need to be on their feet when they were queen. But the birds from the tree on Cinderella's mother's grave helped the Prince realize that the step-sisters were imposters both times he was fooled, and he made it back to the house and Cinderella. At first the family were hesitant to let her try on the slipper, but the Prince insisted, and as soon as it fit her, her recognized her from the festival, and knew that she was his bride. As the Prince and Cinderella Meaning The overarching lesson of Cinderella seems to be one warning people from over-indulgence, after all, too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. Yes, it is admirable that Cinderella continues to be kind to her step-family, but she is abused because of her willingness to allow herself to be continually abused and looked down upon. She also always leaves the party without informing the Prince where he may find her, knowing that if she had, he may have no longer desired her after seeing the conditions in which she lived. There are other lessons involved too, such as the strength of a mother's love, seeing as the tree planted on her grave was what helped Cinderella the most in escaping her horrid situation, and the fact that the mother is deceased could even strengthen this message, as not even death could take her away from her daughter entirely. The Grimm version of Cinderella also values the importance of patience, as it does not have the Prince falling madly in love with Cinderella in just one night as many other adaptations do, but instead it takes three nights (which is still an absurd amount of time, but better than many other fairy tales) for the Prince to announce his love for her, and attempt to commit himself to her, as the pitch on the stairs could only mean that he wished to keep her at his side. The Sisters Grimm In The Sisters Grimm, Cinderella's storyline seems to follow the Perrault version of the story, despite the fact that all of the fairy tales were supposed to have been recorded by the Grimms if that was at all an option (they obviously aren't getting credited with A Christmas Carol ''by Charles Dickens, for example). In ''The Sisters Grimm, Sabrina mentions seeing ugly stepsisters at the ball Mayor Charming (Prince William Charming)'s fundraising ball in the very first book, with no mentions of gruesome injuries to their faces. Cinderella also has a fairy godmother, as in the Perrault telling, which could be seen as devaluing the strength of a mother's love, as the mother figure's role from the Grimm story is essentially replaced by the godmother, in the way that the step-mother was perhaps meant to when her father wed her. Cinderella also has three mice helpers in The Sisters Grimm, instead of the birds from Grimm, but as they can turn into humans, they serve to make the Perrault telling a little more plausible, as she is no longer communicating with regular mice, as she is in the Disney move. In the Perrault version, Cinderella forgives her step-sisters, so the meaning of the story takes on another lesson on the importance of forgiveness, which was not present in the Grimm telling. However, perhaps the strongest lesson in Cinderella's story in The Sisters Grimm ''is that of self-growth. Not only does she move on from Prince Charming and find new love in Tom Baxter, but she creates a relationship advice radio show to use her expertise from her abusive family to help others in difficult situations fix or escape from them. But perhaps the biggest takeaway from the change in meaning is the devaluing of physical beauty. Yes, Cinderella is as beautiful as ever, but she is very devoted to her husband Tom, who, as a human, has continued to age despite Cinderella staying forever youthful, and he could no longer be called conventionally attractive. She loves him anyway. And at the end of her important storyline, we see her willingness to give up her own beauty when she sees it is the only way to stay with her dear Tom and have them both be happy, despite the fact that she cannot take the action of aging back. There are more lessons on kindness as well, such as how willing her mice friends (Malcolm, Bradford, and Alexander) are to help her, even centuries later, because of her kindness and their subsequent loyalty to her. In Cinderella's fairy godmother, Twilarose however, we receive a completely different message. It seems that Twilarose is stagnant, refusing to change the way she does her job (designing and making dresses) even though her style is not longer popular or what anyone would consider fashionable. As such, she is not doing well at her store, and rarely ever manages to sell any of her numerous creations, showing the necessity for change. Characters * ''Cinderella Baxter * Tom Baxter (In The Sisters Grimm) * William Charming * Twilarose (In The Sisters Grimm) * Alexander (In The Sisters Grimm) * Bradford (In The Sisters Grimm) * Malcolm (In The Sisters Grimm)